Although it is well known that the Bible is used in Jewish and Christian liturgy, the role of the liturgy as a form of biblical interpretation is not well recognized. Liturgy has the potential to be far more influential than commentary in shaping how people perceive the meaning of scriptural texts; yet this genre of biblical reception remains severely understudied. In Liturgy and Biblical Interpretation: The Sanctus and the Qedushah, Sebastian Selvén shows how the actual use of the Hebrew Bible in Jewish and Christian liturgical traditions, architecture, music, and choreography shape our sense of what the Bible means. To do so, he offers a case study of Isaiah 6:3, tracing the text's lines of influence in the qedushah liturgies of Ashkenazi Judaism and in the Sanctus as used in three church traditions (pre-1969 Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, and Lutheranism). Focusing on liturgy as something that is lived and experienced, rather than something written about in worship or rubric manuals, this study deploys methodological frameworks from performance and theater studies, as well as Clifford Geertz's concept of "thick description" from the field of anthropology, to show how liturgy functions as a form of biblical exegesis--indeed, as even the most influential form of it. Working at the crossroads of liturgical and biblical studies, and making novel use of relevant methodologies from other disciplines to shed new light on how the liturgy provides a way of reading the Bible, Liturgy and Biblical Interpretation offers a study that is the first of its kind. It will interest scholars of the Bible, liturgy, and church history, as well as Jewish and Christian clergy.
- | Author: Sebastian Selvã©N
- | Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
- | Publication Date: January 15, 2021
- | Number of Pages: 244 pages
- | Language: English
- | Binding: Hardcover
- | ISBN-10: 0268200017
- | ISBN-13: 9780268200015
